Tag: tsushima

This week, in the “Boy, Girl and —” arc finale, Souma Sumire comes to Kei’s place, makes chicken curry, telling him about how Urachi grew up while she cooks. Urachi is basically Kei’s opposite: he wants all abilities to be wiped out, because he believes they’ll hurt, rather than help, the weak in the world (though we’re just talking about one small town here).

Then Souma takes a shower, because, as Kei presumes, she knows she’s going to cry. She tells Kei that Souma Sumire died so that when she was ultimately brought back by Kei’s efforts, she wouldn’t really be Souma Sumire anymore, which allowed her to pass Sakuin’s lie detection.

This “artifact”, as she calls herself, still intends to hinder Urachi, and so did everything possible to give Kei a chance to thwart his plans—except tell him everything before she set her plan into motion.

The fault for this lies in the Souma of two years ago who no longer exists, and though “Souma II” admits she and her are pretty much the same, it was that first Souma who acted “foolishly”, letting Kei get stolen away by Haruki, then forcing all of the “hard parts” onto her replacement. She can’t forgive her, but like her, Kei’s happiness comes first.

Kei expresses his gratitude to both Past Souma and Souma II, and as they eat the curry, he notes how the flavor is “oddly nostalgic.” Souma used her ability to draw from his mother’s know-how, but just as she’s not 100% the Souma Sumire she used to be, something made with “a mother’s love” cannot be 100% replicated.

Kei commits to beating Urachi, which he intends to do by claiming all of the abilities in Sakurada, as the MacGuffin promised to do. The miracles they’ll create will be happy, not a danger or nuisance as Urachi so strongly believes.

Kei made sure to warn Haruki that Oka Eri may pay her a visit, and to let him know if she takes her Reset ability (again). Sure enough, Urachi arrives with Oka, and instead of having Oka take her Reset right there, he uses his own ability on her, “rewinding” her to two-plus-years ago, before she met Asai Kei (and when she had really long hair.)

He leaves the sleeping Haruki with Oka, telling her to take her Reset once she wakes up in the hospital.

Oka Eri wants to beat Senpai, but a part of her still admires, looks up to, and loves Kei, and so when she heard his voice message in her head, telling her he’s been “backed into a corner”, and asks if when the time comes she won’t take Haruki’s reset…it puts Oka in a moral bind.

Just as Souma got around Urachi’s lie detector through rather desperate measures, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kei has to make similar sacrifices in order to succeed in his mission.

The stakes couldn’t be higher: his relationship to Haruki and the abilities of the town hang in the balance, and Urachi, preparing to wake up his “petrified” mother after 20 years, is playing for keeps.

Now that Kei knows that Urachi Masamune is trying to eliminate abilities from Sakurada, he tries to determine what Urachi’s next move will be…and that inevitably leads to Ukawa Sasane, quietly the most powerful—and thus most potentially dangerous—of all the town’s ability users.

Urachi indeed pursues Ukawa, but not directly. He sends Tsushima, a non-user, to convince her to join the cause, siting the potential danger of ability users unconsciously and spontaneously activating their powers.

As Kei enlists the help of Murase and Nonoo to locate Ukawa, Haruki, whom he doesn’t enlist, just happens to visit the cat shrine, just for the heck of it.

Haruki expresses how she feels and how she’s worried her recent increased “selfishness” will annoy Kei. Nonoo doesn’t think it will, nor does she subscribe to Haruki’s notions of “being good enough.”

Haruki already has become more than Kei could ever have hoped for. The emotions she now feels are still new, but fiercely felt; a warm fire now burns within her cool, calm exterior. If she were to kiss Kei now, as opposed to the first time, I don’t doubt she’d actually feel something…feel quite a bit, for that matter.

As for Kei’s attempt to get to Ukawa before the Bureau, it fails. Ukawa unleashes her ability, and the rainy clouds part. Kei’s entreaties to Tsushima, about why abilities are the one problem out of all of the problems in the world, that must be dealt with, are largely brushed aside.

Tsushima urges Kei to embrace becoming a normal high school student, which also means being a normal boyfriend, and eventually a normal salaryman and husband and father. And as I’ve mentioned in earlier reviews…would that really be the worst thing? Kei and Haruki are, as their advisor says, burdened with too many unnecessary things.

Those things are very much putting a lot of strain on someone, trying to be a hero, but sacrificing his own life and happiness in the process. Tsushima thinks that’s wrong, and it’s why he convinced Ukawa to use her ability, thus compelling the Bureau to eliminate abilities.

But this episode presents a new and potentially terrifying prospect: Asai Kei can’t ever be normal. Urachi and the Bureau will eliminate abilities by eliminating memories of them in every man, woman, and child in Sakurada. But Kei’s memories won’t be affected.

Kei alone will remember the forty years of time Sakurada was a town of ability users. He is a loose end, and the way he sees it, killing him is the only way to eliminate his memories. Will Urachi stoop that low? Can he really call the town he’s trying to bring about “sacred” after that?

We are made to hear the Witch’s parting words to Kei one last time so we can see his reaction later on: tears of joy. In the last two years, the one thing that has driven Kei is the hope that some day, in a city full of what would be considered miracles in the outside world, he would find the means to bring Souma Sumire back to life.

The Witch essentially confirms that this was the right and proper course all along, because he is destined to meet Souma again, and Souma runs a test to see if he can bring something from a photo world into the real world without that thing vanishing.

The test is a success; a cherry petal from the photo remains even after ten minutes—ironic, considering the nature of sakura. They are something both joyful (because of their stirring beauty) and morose (because they are ephemeral).

But before we get that confirmation the test worked, we’re taken back to the past once more; this time, to when Kei was in the sixth grade and a relative newbie to Sakurada. Even as a little kid he’s a smart cookie, determining before the Bureau rep has to say it that his memory retention ability would work even outside of Sakurada.

Because of this, the Bureau offers him a comfortable life and livelihood in Sakurada…but he can never leave. In effect, Asai Kei is the one ability-user (aside from those who could copy or steal his ability) who could most threaten the city’s very existence by exposing it to the outside world, breaking its Shrödinger’s Cat-like status.

Kei loves this city, so he quickly agrees—discarding his past in the process. Then he experiences a Reset for the first time, and if anything, he’s more excited than ever to be in such a place and such a position. He’s won the lottery, basically.

As Kei sets up the Save Point in the same place where Souma appears in the photo, Haruki resigns herself to the fact Kei will make her and the others forget everything henceforth. As she’s dedicated herself to following his lead, she’s fine with everything, but does wonder if, like Mari, the Souma they save will be the “real” one.

It doesn’t really matter to Kei, but he knows that whoever he revives may not enjoy a “peaceful” life due to her ability. Even so, he must bring her back; follow the script Souma laid out for everyone. He sees the MacGuffin as proof of this: the one who holds it (i.e. Kei, now) will have “all the abilities in Sakurada.”

It was the object whose power was created through rumor and never was anything other than an ordinary stone, and yet it drove Kei to become the protagonist of this story by gathering the ability-users he needed to bring Souma back from the dead.

When the time comes to actually do that, the tension is palpable, and all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as the feeling that something momentous was about to take place washed over me. (The show grossly underestimates how hard it is to tear a Polaroid, but no matter.)

Once in the photo, everything happens with a quiet but purposeful haste. Kei doesn’t even run over to Souma, but waits for Sakagami and Murase to do their stuff, then tells Haruki to reset. He’s that sure this will work, even though I wasn’t.

And so it does: by utilizing the abilities of the others, Kei wielded the MacGuffin, rose to become the protagonist of the story, and brought Souma back to life, just as she was sure he would—she shows no surprise in seeing him. Kei hides his delight at having succeeded, in part because he’s a reserved guy and in part because he doesn’t know how the future will progress past this point.

For now, it’s enough that Souma is back. She comments on how he’s grown, both in stature, ability, and in his friendship with Haruki. He also reports how much Haruki has grown, and that he’s come to want her to keep making progress on the road to finding a sense of self, even if it breaks the “pure goodness” he may have fell for earlier.

Souma even set things up with Tomoki so that if she was really Souma and not some kind of copy, she’d receive a voice message meant for her two years in the future. She receives that message, then asks Kei which Souma he’d like to meet, confident he’ll make the correct choice. He is the protagonist, after all. She made him so.

Sakurada Reset pulled off quite a lot last week, and got particularly exciting when things started coming together, but there’s still something unsatisfying about following it up with another flashback. Momentum had been built up, but this episode killed it, by valuing context-through-lengthy explanation over progress.

Mind you, I’m not mad about learning more about what happened just after Souma Sumire died—the two-year jump was pretty dang abrupt! It’s more a matter of timing, and the fact that I’d grown accustomed to being in the “present” of two years later.

With that said, this is an opportunity to see Kei and Haruki before they figured out how to be a well-oiled reset/recall machine. After Souma dies, both of them suspect the reset ability: Haruki, the ability itself, and Kei, the fact he used it so “thoughtlessly”—and in doing so sealing Souma’s fate.

While Haruki tries in vain over and over to reset on her own, Kei visits the spot where Souma fell, and meets a young Kit-Kat-loving woman named Ukawa Sasane (Koshimizu Ami) who thinks he’s Souma’s boyfriend thinking of offing himself.

She’s wrong about him being a boyfriend, or being suicidal, but Ukawa’s assumption is couched in her desire to save others from dangerous places like the bridge, be it with a Kit-Kat (an invitation to “take a break” and chill out) or with her “fence-making” ability.

A call to the Bureau for answers (and a request to save Souma) goes nowhere, and Kei eventually decides his choice to reset wasn’t what killed Souma, while Haruki realizes she can’t reset on her own because a part of her is scared of being hated by Kei.

Ultimately, the two come together and agree that the people they can help with their combined abilities outweighs the possible suffering resetting might cause. Kei tells Haruki to reset, it works, and they complete their actual first job in the Service Club.

Kei, however, isn’t done trying to find a way to bring Souma back. Her death and his inability to prevent it clearly still haunt him, and he believes if there’s a place where someone can be brought back from the dead, it’s Sakurada.

It would seem that he’ll eventually be proven right, since two years later the “Witch” considers Souma her successor, and assures Asai he’ll see her again. One can’t succeed anyone unless they’re alive, after all.

But this week, at least, is just more fuel for the fire of the show’s detractors. It lent more context to later events and positions, and introduced a new character, but even by Sagrada standards it was a dull trudge, not helped by the fact it took place entirely in a tension-sapping flashback.

After this week’s first act, I’m convinced this show excels at getting us to underestimate Asai Kei, at least as much as his adversaries do. Last week Eri Oka seemed to be holding all the cards, but it turns out Asai isn’t trapped in the photo for more than a few minutes.

Even though that buys time for Eri to mess with Haruki, Asai has Murase in place to mount a rescue. A rescue that occurs after Eri tries to plant false memories in Haruki, which not only doesn’t work (thanks to a little device in Haruki’s ear with Asai’s voice) but restores Haruki’s Reset ability.

It’s a great little turnaround, flummoxing Eri, who retreats for the time being. And having Asai and Haruki back together underscored how much anxiety I felt when they were apart. Of course, I’ve seen all their interactions thus far, but it’s important to remember Haruki doesn’t remember a lot of them.

That’s why she’s not keen to immediately reset; she wants to remember what Asai did for her. So instead of resetting, she saves, and Asai returns to the Sasano case, apparently confident Eri won’t be bothering them for a while.

The next morning, Asai receives a message to “come see someone”, and three photos, one of a woman on the beach, another of a blossoming cherry tree, and the third, Souma Sumire at sunset. Asai assumes it’s the “Witch” who is summoning him, so he goes to the beach.

There, he takes what he learned from his encounter with Eri, enters the photo, and converses with the Witch in her younger form. Because her ability is knowledge of the future, she knows what she’s going to do, and when she’s going to die, and wants to escape the bureau to see Sasano before that happens.

To that end, she used both Asai and Eri, but presents Asai with a choice: he can stop Eri, possibly leaving the Witch to die in confinement, or save the Witch another way (a way she may already know he’ll implement, mind you).

Asai gathers Sasano, Haruki and Murase, and head to the Bureau, Scooby-gang-style, and wait for Eri to get them inside. Sasano, armed with a Polaroid, takes photos of the building’s interior, one of which proves useful in getting one of the Bureau guards “out of the picture.”

This infiltration of the Bureau is only preparation for the next infiltration, when the actual rescue of the Witch is to take place. Asai has Haruki reset, sending him back to when they saved on the beach. He then jumps into one of the photos they took of the Witch’s room and asks her to call him.

The photos are still around because Murase had them, and her power negates reset, while his communication with the Witch of the past reaches the Witch of the present because she knows the future. It’s a complicated metaphysical labyrinth, but it checks out.

Before pulling it all off, Asai meets with a surprisingly chipper Eri, who accepts her loss but isn’t ready to give up on beating him, thus proving he’s weaker. Asai, meanwhile, knows that she won’t hurt him as long as he’s “defenseless.” Considering this is a long show, Eri is sure to be back; we’ll see whether she poses a greater threat at that point.

As expected, Asai gets a call from the Bureau, who bring him to the Witch, who asks him the same questions about “loving a stone” she asked Haruki, to which Asai answers he’d still love the stone if it was the girl he liked. But is that girl Asai…or Souma?

Regardless, Asai gives the Witch the photos she needs to escape and knock on the window of her boyfriend, just like the story Sasano told her when they were far younger. All these years, the Bureau has kept her under lock and key, fearful of her power. But after a time, or maybe all along, it was a power she never seemed all that interested in having, let alone using.

That’s why she decides she’ll leave Sakurada, forget about her power altogether, and live out the rest of her days—all seven of them, by her reckoning. But before she does, she indulges Asai by telling him his future: he will be involved in “something big”, something involving her “successor”, whom Asai correctly identifies as Souma. The Witch tells him he’ll run into her again. I certainly hope so!

Whew, what a ride. This mini-arc contained the most complicated ability machinations yet, and it was downright exhilarating watching all the pieces be carefully maneuvered into place before being set into quick, decisive motion. On top of that, we got confirmation Souma isn’t totally dead (though whether she’ll merely exist in that photo or not, who can say).

By not forgetting what Asai did for her, Haruki’s affection for him continues to grow. Murase is proving to be useful as “muscle” (i.e. putting holes in things or neutralizing abilities) while Eri has vowed to come back at Asai, insisting he should “be afraid.” One thing I’m not afraid of: losing interest in this unapologetically bizarre, engrossing show.

I could not have said it better than Tsushima myself: Things are getting complicated, and for once, Asai has a worthy adversary who manages to stay a step ahead of him the entire time, leading to even higher stakes by episode’s end.

But let’s go back to the beginning, and the photo by Sasano that entices Asai so. It’s indeed a photo of Souma Sumire, on the same beach where they first met and promised to meet again. And I suppose he could, in a way, by entering the photo as Sasano does.

Extremely unsettling metaphysical ramifications aside, we also learn something simpler: the evolution of Oka Eri. She was once Fujikawa Eri, before the hair-dye and contacts and rad clothes; the “weak and worthless” daughter who took abuse from her father.

Two years ago, Asai saved Eri by telling her to change her name and use a piece of evidence to blackmail her father if she so chose. Oka Eri was born, and I believe part of her believes that she’s paying Asai back by confirming his weakness, in hopes he’ll return to his former strength; the hero to her villain in this story of life.

Asai has moved on from the person he was two years ago, but meanwhile, Sasano is able to travel to 28 years in the past where a much younger Oracle lives inside one of his photos. The two of them have a plan, and it’s a long-game kind of plan. When Sasano tells her the Bureau is going to try to shut him down, she tells him not to resist, but to give her a certain selection of photos before they come.

Asai all but confirms how soft he’s gotten since meeting Asai by being drawn away from her all too easily by a frantic phone call from Murase Youka. On her own, Haruki does her best to get away from a pursuing Oka, but around five seconds of eye contact are all the villain needs to steal her reset ability.

After confirming she can’t reset, Haruki begs Asai to help her get it back, and he agrees. He’ll accede to Eri’s demand for the MacGuffin in exchange for Haruki’s ability back, then learns more from Tsushima about Eri’s ability and its weaknesses, which will no doubt be pivotal in his counterattack.

However, he doesn’t get to make one this week. Standing his ground on having moved on from the “hero” Eri saw him as two years ago and worshipped, he offers the MacGuffin without any resistance; his only goal to restore Haruki’s ability.

But Eri has another trick up her sleeve, which digs an even deeper hole for Asai and Haruki: she traps him in a photo of the lighthouse balcony they’re on, taken during the day, underscoring how hopelessly cut off he is from the “non-photo” world. And poor Haruki, who trailed after Asai, hoping the plan would work out, is once again vulnerable to Eri’s whims.

All in all, quite a mess Asai and Haruki have found themselves in. A satisfying conclusion would obviously get them out of this mess, but also, as with Murase earlier, convince Eri not to be a villain anymore, not because she’s being forced to quit, but because she wants to. That’s going to take some doing…

…And that’s before we even get into whatever Sasano and Oracle are planning.

Sakurada Reset continues its penchant for whimsically jumping from timeline to timeline by starting four years in the past, with Kei on the train to Sakurada. He encounters a man in a suit who hands him a phone that immediately rings, and a nameless “witch” is on the other end, telling him the “place he belongs” is the town of Sakurada, but warns him he’ll never live a normal life, as the town will “grab on to [him] and never let go.”

Well, we know how he chose, and it leads to his latest assignment: meeting with Sasano, an elderly gentleman whose ability to enter photographs (and thus, relive moments from the past his photos capture) has been taken away. He wants the MacGuffin to get his ability back, but Kei believes there’s a more surefire way: use his and Haruki’s powers to stop whoever sealed his ability before they seal it.

When Sasano insists on repaying Kei once he restores his power, Kei asks if he’ll use his ability for him, after seeing a figure on the beach in a photo that could very well be Souma Sumire, the loss of whom no doubt weighs upon Asai every day. Perhaps seeing and hearing her one last time could assuage that regret. A chat with Hitsuchi-kun reveals that Sasano was one of the founders of the Bureau.

After not getting changed in front of Haruki (who’d have been totes okay with it) and enjoying a lunch she prepared for them, Kei tells Haruki the thought experiment of the “Swampman”, and it leads to Kei assuring Haruki he’d be sad if she died and was replaced by someone who looked exactly like her. Furthermore, he wouldn’t want to go on living without knowing the truth. Both assertions please Haruki.

The two are then summoned, as Tsushima assured them they would be, and they accompany the same suited man who approached Kei on the train years ago. They’re then separated, as only one of them at a time may meet with the person who wants to meet with them.

That person turns out to be another founding member of the Bureau, or at least a facilitator. She has no name, and refers to herself as a “witch” with partial jest and partial wistfulness. In reality, she is an oracle, able to see the future, both of Sakurada, the Bureau, and individuals like Kei and Haruki.

Naturally, she cannot tell them those futures, but only offer riddles, much like the Oracle of The Matrix. Aside from educating Kei on her purpose, and the fact she is near death, the “witch” does not dispense as much knowledge as she likely gains by seeing Kei’s future. She also “apologizes” to him but doesn’t say what for.

As for Haruki, the “witch” presses her on how she feels about Kei and why, talking about a stone with thoughts that can be turned into a human and whatnot. Ultimately, it’s a simple “chat with a girl about love”, and after reading her future, the “witch” has all she needs and bids her farewell.

After Kei was dismissed, he is confronted by Eri Oka, the girl who took Sasano’s ability; someone he knows and who knows him, calls him “senpai”, and a “hypocrite” and thinks he used to be “more badass”. She’s there for one thing: to be the villain, causing trouble for people.

Her specific threats: to take the MacGuffin from Kei, then take away Haruki’s Reset ability. She claims to hate Kei, and wants to see him hit rock bottom…and taking Haruki’s power would certainly do that! So when Haruki emerges from the building, he immediately requests she reset, and she does.

Oka Eri likely assumed Kei would get a reset or two in in an attempt to thwart her plans, but the threats have been dispensed. Now Kei and Haruki have to figure out a way to defeat her.

She’s a bit stiff and obvious as a villain, so I’m wondering if she’s truly what she says she is, or merely using her villain persona as a means to test the service club’s dynamic duo like they’ve never been tested before. Either way, it should be an interesting confrontation.

If you’d have told me prior to this week’s episode that we’d not only go back to Asai and Haruki’s first job as high school service club members, but that that first job would involve a student stuck in the reflection of a marble, I’d have thought you were off your rocker. But that’s Sagrada Reset for you: full of surprises and unapologetically weird in its execution of those surprises.

The non-Patema, yet still Inverted Sera Sawako serves as a fresh lens from which to view our lead couple, and she’s candid in her assessment, as you can see above. But she doesn’t think that’s a bad thing, just as she’s not particularly panicking about being stuck in a marble’s reflection, despite the inconveniences.

She even inadvertently gets Haruki to start using the same vocal patterns as Asai, which Sera finds even weirder, while Asai can see the upside, but would rather Haruki spoke like Haruki, which was a clever (if oh-so-subtle for a non-Japanese speaker) bit of voice acting by Hanazawa Kana.

As this is the first job, it’s not a particularly difficult one, and certainly less bloody than the one involving Murase later on. They only need one reset, and even though Tsushima tells Asai to reset immediately, the fact they were to meet with Sera-in-the-Marble (during an expensed meal) tells Asai that Tsushima is hoping the duo will do more, and they do.

That includes contacting Sera’s middle school friends and learning her unwanted nickname from then was “Student Monitor” due to her perfect attendance and penchant for warning students who broke the rules. It all stems from a conversation she had with her elementary school teacher about the “pure object” within her that lets her see only pure things.

Sera’s ability is to transport her consciousness into the reflection of something pure, but Asai surmises the ability only activates when she desires to do something impure—like not worry about being late for the opening ceremony. In exercising her right, nay, responsibility as a youngster to be irresponsible at times, she literally and figuratively ends up in an stange, inverted new world, and she doesn’t really like it.

Asai also picks up on the fact that despite the strife it may have caused her, Sera wants to stay true to herself, and continue to have that impossibly “pure object” exist within her. In that regard, her foray into the marble is almost a punishment for not being true to herself.

When Asai tells Haruki to reset, it’s at the very last moment, once he has all he needs to resolve Sera’s predicament. The next time she spots a marble in the street, Asai beats her to it, so she’s not late for her bus, and arrives at the ceremony on time.

Still, she heads to the field instead of the auditorium so she can eat a lollipop, which she assumed was against the rules (causing tears to well up), only to learn from Asai that it isn’t (since they’re technically between classes).

Asai isn’t 100% sure Sera will never end up in a reflection of something again, but he and Haruki did as much as they could, and she’s out of the marble, so it’s first mission accomplished. And just to bring it all together, as the cold open showed, the one to lead Murase upon her introduction to her class in September is none other than Sera Sawako; both of them beneficiaries of Asai and Haruki’s services.

Occasionally, I like a show that keeps me engaged; that challenges me; that even leaves me in the dust if I’m not sufficiently aware. Sagrada Reset is all of those things so far, and there’s a genuine thrill in not knowing just what the hell is going to transpire from one episode to the next, in addition to being emotionally invested in the characters—something that didn’t seem feasible in episode one.

Sagrada is also dense, and if you blink you might miss a reset or a vital piece of information. For all its seeming randomness, it builds, so far, off every little event and detail it’s presented thus far. It doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence, it demands it, and it won’t hold your hand. That can make it hard to follow, even frustrating at times, but despite getting a little lost at times I felt it still holds together.

This week is a particularly bloody and violent episode, as Asai promptly learns that Minami Mirai was killed by Hisuchi-kun, hence her becoming a ghost that haunts him to start the episode.

Of course, she wasn’t just shot or strangled, she was killed when Hisuchi, who gains nourishment not from food (he’s an intense germaphobe) but from information he sucks out of others like an intel vampire. Minami had too much, and he went to far. He didn’t mean to kill her; it just happened.

But just when Asai and Haruki are wrapping their heads around the murder, they are confronted by Murase Youka, whose sudden violent, homicidal outburst would be out of character if we knew her character. I didn’t realize it at the time, but we later learn there’s a very good reason for her very odd, violent behavior, and it all comes down to Haruki’s Reset ability.

Asai orders Haruki to reset before Murase kills him. Back at school, Haruki is glad when Asai tells her they haven’t gone to the festival yet (girl wants her DATE). They visit Tsushima for answers, and he tells them more about the “MacGuffin”, which enables anyone who possesses it to control all the special abilities in Sakurada…only to then tell them exactly what and where it is, obviously trusting his students won’t take it.

Someone does take it…or rather, ends up with it by chance. That person is Minami, who isn’t killed by Hisuchi-kun this time because Asai and Haruki visit him. They’re joined by Murase, whose knowledge indicates to Asai that she’s able to remember two resets back, but not one. He also learns about her M.O.—her desire to destroy and remake the bureau into something more effective after it failed to save her brother.

Indeed, it’s Murase who helps them find Hisuchi’s house, using her ability in a way I didn’t expect (while explaining the hand-shaped hole in the wall last week). Hisuchi tells them about Minami ending up with the stone, and he helped her because he was guilty for killing her.

I’d say that that never happened, but it actually did, and Haruki’s ability didn’t negate that fact, it merely rewound and, well, reset things to her last save. Murase ends up stealing the MacGuffin from Minami, lightly wounding her in the process, but Asai assures Haruki they don’t have to go after her. All will be taken care of in due time.

In the meantime, Tsushima gives Asai a new job: to convince a truant, Murase, to come back to school. To do that, Tsushima believes Murase needs to be utterly defeated, to show her that she still has more to learn before starting a revolution against the Bureau.

Asai visits Nono Seika with some takoyaki, to muse over the Murase situation in a calm place. And he thinks of Souma Sumire, who told him its better to say something than nothing, even if it’s bad, and to not be afraid.

After that, it’s his big little date with Haruki, who is resplendent in her yukata, and doesn’t just smile but blushes upon receiving the gift of a hairpin. It didn’t look like Asai was paying attention to her when she spotted it, but clearly he did. I loved that little detail.

He asks Haruki for a favor, and the next day we see she’s joined him beside the river to confront Murase. She thinks they’re ready to join her cause, but Asai wants to test her abilities first. Haruki saves, then she obliges, and Asai offers almost no resistance as she puts her finger through his hand. During the fight he suspects she attacked them the first time because she wanted a reset for herself, to forget Minami Mirai’s death.

An increasingly agitated Murase is certain she has Asai in checkmate, even noting that if Haruki resets, he’s only two steps away from her, and she could easily defeat him before he had time to do anything. But it’s Murase who’s in check, as Asai moves his head into her hand, which goes through it, killing him horribly. He does this before ordering Haruki to reset…so she doesn’t.

Then something I didn’t expect happened: Nanako Tomoki beams his voice into Haruki’s head, then Asai’s voice comes through—in that moment, a ghost, just like Minami was—giving Haruki the reset order. She resets, and Minami remains where she is: exactly in a location where when Asai said “Bang”, it looks like he struck her down.

Stunned by this course of events, Murase promptly concedes defeat, which means she’ll honor the terms of their agreement, return to school, one day join the bureau, and make it better that way. Asai also tells her the cat is fine, chilling with Nonoo. He holds out his hand to shake hers in order to celebrate their new friendship.

He’s quite sure that her ability has worn off, making it safe to touch her, but the episode still ends just before they touch, so good it is at messing with us. Still, it’s mission accomplished—and what a baller mission it turned out to be.